A state high Court has barred the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from conducting congress in Rivers state.
The court order came a few weeks after Governor Fubara told some National Assembly members that the PDP had failed him and his supporters.
A State High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has barred Nigeria’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from conducting its congress in the state.
The judge, Sobere Biambo, gave the order in a suit filed by David Omereji and ten others (as applicants) against the PDP, its national chairperson, national financial secretary, and national organising secretary (defendants). “That an interim order is hereby issued stopping or suspending the PDP congress in Rivers State scheduled to hold on 27 July or to be held on any order date or any other location pending the determination of the motion on notice already filed. interim is hereby issued restraining the defendants by themselves, agents or otherwise howsoever, from taking any decision or giving any directive to further extend howsoever the already expired tenure of the last state, local government and ward executive officers of the PDP in Rivers State,” the judge declared before adjourned the matter to 19 July.
The order was contained in a court document sent to Niger Delta Herald by Nelson Chukwudi, the spokesperson to Governor Siminalayi Fubara. The suit is part of the protracted political battle between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, the FCT minister. “In our state today, we are no longer doing parties. We are doing a movement, so you don’t blame me if I don’t go to the side of the party too much,” Mr Fubara said in a meeting with the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation at Government House, Port Harcourt.
“The party has failed us here, so what we are doing here is to stand with our two legs on the soil of Rivers State to defend democracy,” he added.
Mr Fubara’s anger may have stemmed from the frustration he faced in April when the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) accepted the list of caretaker committee members submitted by allies of Mr Wike.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike Messrs Fubara and Wike, two estranged allies, are fighting over the control of the political structure in the state.
Governor Fubara rejected the lists of the caretaker members, which he said were “fake”, Niger Delta Herald reported.
“We had a meeting and agreed that not just in Rivers, but in all the states affected, the Executive Council of PDP should be extended for three months.
“This extension is not meant to bring in new names, the extension also did not say that you are working without the authority of the governor.
“So, for those lists that you saw and those ones altered, I can assure you that they are not going to stand,” Mr Fubara said in April when the caretaker committee members were considered.
The PDP said it accepted the list from Mr Wike’s allies because of a Federal High Court order in Abuja “restraining it from altering the lists”.
“The (PDP) NWC, at its emergency meeting on 23 April, reviewed the issue of the caretaker committee of Rivers State.
“After extensive deliberation, the NWC noted the existence of an ex-parte order issued by the Federal High Court, Abuja, restraining the NWC from further action with respect to the status of the Rivers State caretaker committee lists as published,” Debo Ologunagba, the PDP spokesperson, said in a statement in